


....And Felt How Awful Goodness Is

by Copperonthetongue



Series: Paradise Lost [2]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: ...probably not a hug though, Carl POV, Carl REALLY Needs Therapy, Carl is Not Okay, Carl is SO Done, Episode POV, Except Negan Because he's Crazy, Gen, Negan Done Fucked Up, Negan's Bad Choices, No One Is Happy., Protective Carl Grimes, Rick Makes Terrible Decisions, Sad Carl Grimes, Sequel, What Carl Was Thinking, can be read independently, s7e1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:44:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8437165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Copperonthetongue/pseuds/Copperonthetongue
Summary: Having to tell his own father that it was alright to do what was necessary was absolutely the low point of his day. That included losing Glenn and Abraham. People died. That was what they did, because all it took was one mistake. It didn't even have to be your own.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiromori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiromori/gifts).



Carl Grimes was probably never going to be a good person. He knew that. His Dad wouldn’t agree, but that was just…. Ranger Rick being Ranger Rick. His Dad never wanted to acknowledge anything that didn’t match his own view of the world and the people in it and how he thought that they should be. Stubborn to the bone, it was one of the things that his Mom had bitched about most. To be fair though, it was something they had in common. He didn’t like admitting it ...but there it was. There was another thing he shared with his Dad, and that was that it didn’t matter much to him what anybody else said or thought about him. When it came to knowing who and what he was, he knew the truth and that was more than enough for him. He didn’t need anybody’s approval. 

 

He knew his own mind and he was highly aware of the parts of himself that were different, maybe even wrong. They were the same parts that made him have to remind himself to smile or laugh when other people just DID it without thinking about it. HE did it because it chased the shadows out of his Dad’s eyes and made the ever present tension bleed out of Michonne’s broad, strong shoulders. He did it to make Judith smile, and sometimes he did it to see Enid do the same. He put on his person suit and pretended for a little while that everything was going to be okay. That he was just a normal guy, doing normal guy things. He wasn’t, and even though no one else said it he knew THEY sensed it too. They were just….nice enough not to say anything out loud. It showed the most in times like these, when everybody else was a live wire of emotion and he just…...wasn’t.

 

Kneeling in the dirt for Negan didn’t make him afraid. It just quietly pissed him off. It didn’t break his will or humiliate him or make him in any way inclined to be obedient. Instead, it made him decide that he was going to HURT the bigger man for what he was doing now. He was going to punish him one day in the future, and when that day came he was going to enjoy it. He was going to enjoy it then, just as much as Negan was enjoying himself by hurting them now….with all his men watching and feeding off of the terror and grief of their shattered and wounded group. Maybe he’d make certain Negan’s men had the same opportunity to watch their leader, their Savior be humbled. Probably not though.

 

After all, that was Negan’s mistake. He was having too much fun, and any idiot knows that you can only kick a dog for so long before it bites you, it might not be the first time, or the tenth...but the day would come eventually when that dog remembered it had teeth and didn’t care about the price for using them.

 

Another thing that supremely pissed him off was that Negan said out loud what no one else ever wanted to about him. It rubbed him wrong that a man he’d never spoken to, never so much as met before could just casually put a name to the black rage that twisted inside him sometimes -- that unnatural thing that peered out from behind his remaining eye, patient and hungry and eager. Negan just said it out loud in front of God and everybody like it was nothing, like it wasn’t something that Carl was doing his level goddamned best to not say, or do, or be. A secret that in his heart he knew wasn’t much of a secret at all. Future serial killer. It wasn’t something he wanted...it was something he dreaded but suspected was inevitable. He wasn’t going to be a good man, not like his father. Rick Grimes was damaged but there was still a core of hope in him. A small piece of the man he used to be. That was not the case for Carl. He would never be able to function in the world his Dad missed so much. He was just fine with the one they had.

 

 

He wasn’t sure when it had been exactly, what moment or collection of moments it was that made him as he was now. When precisely the script inside him had changed. Maybe it was when he looked down the sight of his gun and put a bullet in his mother’s brain. You could call it mercy, but for him that hadn’t made it any easier. Maybe it was before that. It could just as easily have been in the swamp when he’d tormented the trapped walker just because he could. He’d known it was dangerous, but he hadn’t cared. He was tired of being afraid. He'd wanted control back and so he’d taken it. Suddenly, one of them was helpless for once, rasping at him hungrily, but powerless to hurt him. In that moment the dead had stopped being terrifying. They’d at last stopped being monsters and had become obstacles to overcome instead. One by one the tethers inside him had been unmoored and the person left behind was ..wrong. Like a photograph that had been ripped up and taped back together. The shape was familiar but not quite right. It was recognizable but it would never be the same again. 

 

It was those empty, not quite right spaces inside him that let him be calm when Negan called him forward, that kept his voice even and his temper tightly leashed when he spoke to the man. Negan wanted a reaction. He wasn’t going to give him one. He enjoyed knowing he unnerved the older man. He could see it in his eyes, they were dark and cold and the monster that slept inside Carl woke….and it acknowledged the one that lived in Negan, peering out from those hard brown eyes. His lack of terror confused the bigger man, unsettled him and made him curious all at once. Those eyes said ‘ I see you.’ and Carl knew his own said ‘ I know’ right back. 

 

Carl was no stranger to pain. He wasn’t going to struggle when Negan put him on his belly in the dust. What would happen, would happen regardless of how he felt about it. It was beyond his control. Right now the important task was to survive, and to do that he needed to remain calm and clear headed. It was a shame his Dad wasn’t on the same damn page. 

 

His father still didn’t understand that things were now no longer in his control. The only control he was going to have right now was of himself and his own reactions. Everything that had happened and he still hadn’t learned when it was better to be silent. He fought when he should obey. He threatened when he should wait and plan. He wanted to shake him, maybe punch him for being so goddamned stubborn. He was kneeling there sobbing like a baby as if somehow he believed that Negan was capable of mercy for it’s own sake. As if his tears and his begging would move him. It wouldn’t move Negan, just as it wouldn’t move Carl if it were him in Negan’s place. His Dad acted like he thought Carl was going blame him for cutting off his hand. Like he’d ever blame anybody but Negan himself. Rick might swing the blade but it was Negan’s order and Negan was the only one at fault.

 

 

Rick’s crying and pleading was only putting other people in danger. If Carl could live without an eye and he could live without a hand too. Merle had lost a hand after all and had been no less deadly for it. At this rate he could get himself a parrot and call himself a pirate, but life wasn’t a beauty contest, at least not anymore. The blade was clean and he trusted his father’s aim to be sure and steady if he could just get himself the fuck together. He would much rather his father do it than Negan himself or one of his men, who would have no incentive at all to do a good job. The goal was survival now and his Dad was NOT getting with the program fast enough. 

 

Having to tell his own father that it was alright to do what was necessary was absolutely the low point of his day. That included losing Glenn and Abraham. People died. That was what they did, all it took was one mistake. Sometimes it didn’t even have to be your mistake and that was still it. Show’s over. Daryl was finding that out the hard way. What was worse was that he’d be dealing with it without the group. He’d be coping with the result of his lost temper surrounded by Negan’s thugs. It remained to be seen if they’d ever see Daryl again.

 

It was pure fucking luck that saw Negan let it go. Let HIM go, hand intact. Imagine his surprise. It could easily have gone either way and if he was Negan? He’d have crippled him for sure. Leaving him with two hands that worked and an eye to see with was a mistake that would eventually come back to haunt the older man. Carl was going to make sure of it. 

 

Taking care of what was left of Glenn and Abraham ….that was what family did. They helped each other. They didn’t have to always like or agree with each other but they needed one another to survive. There was strength in the group, just as there was weakness. For now, they needed to deal with Maggie. They needed to rest and shore up their weak points and plan...because this would not go unanswered. Let Negan think he’d won. Let him relax. Let him convince himself he was safe. Carl was more than capable of waiting. When the time was right, he was going to personally shove Lucille up Negan’s hairy ass, and on that day Negan would look back on this moment and recognize it as the moment he made the mistake that killed him. 

 

Carl was looking forward to it.


End file.
